Sunday, August 31, 2008

In the round

I really do have things to blog about right now, but because my digital camera was stolen (again!!) I don't have the photos to download yet (I'm using little disposable cameras, and I have to get them to walmart or someplace to get a CD made).


In the meantime, I wanted to share a passage from a book I'm currently enjoying/obsessing over. The Gentle Art of Domesticity: Stitching, Baking, Nature, Art & the Comforts of Home by Jane Brockett is a really lovely book based on her lovely blog called yarnstorm. The passage I want to quote really hit home since I sometimes feel that everything I do is on an endless loop:


I sometimes find myself going round in circles. One week comes around after the next with another revolution of days. I make circular cookies for the children to recycle into energy and good humor when they come home on a Friday. I sew buttons onto school shirts. I peel apples for a tart. I wind yarns into soft balls. I peer into cups of tea and pry open cans of golden syrup.


And I am hypnotized by knitting socks. Once a sock has been cast on... I adore the mindlessness of going round and round like a hamster in a wheel. I use self-striping yarns... Much of the fun comes from seeing new stripe after new stripe begin, so that after a while this simple knitting becomes a stack of brightly colored hula hoops.

The only way to knit a sock in the round is to keep coming back to your starting point. But, almost imperceptibly, progress is made. It's a pattern, yes, but it's not really a circle, it's a spiral and all the stitches and rows, like days and weeks, are linked to form an unbroken chain. We can think we are getting nowhere with the cyclical nature of domesticity, and yet all the time, as with sock-knitting, we are moving on to a new stitch or a new day and then, suddenly, a whole new row or color...


Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Back to school!

Miss G and pal preparing for their first day in Ms. Cook's class!

Today was the first day of school! Little Miss started full day pre-k (she was supposed to do a half day program but only two kids enrolled, so we moved her to the full day program since she was geared up to go to Collegiate like a big kid!) and Big Guy started fifth grade. It was only a half day today, so he barely had the chance to "go through the drill" (as he said) in both classrooms, but he already has homework, which didn't fly well!

Sadly, I don't have any pictures of his first day this year, because I think my camera was stolen. My friend took these that I have of Miss G's very first day EVER at Collegiate! Hopefully next time I make an entry, I'll have pictures of someone other than my darling daughter, not that I don't love me some pictures of my sweet girl!

As for how we've spent our summer, after Maine, the big kids did a couple of Collegiate camps (Miss G did an art camp and a Dr. Seuss-themed camp and Big Guy did a rocket camp and a DVD production camp where he and his friends made a commercial), Miss G did a ballet camp (she'll be starting regular lessons in a couple of weeks) and Big Guy went away to his first sleep away camp, going to the Karpov Chess Academy in Lindsborg with a small group from Collegiate. He also had two weeks in Florida with my mom right after Maine, and he came back 8 feet tall and full of confidence! The rest of the summer has been pretty quiet. A little too much tv and computer time, probably, but also lots of fun time at my Dad's farm an hour from here with 8 dogs, 6 goats and 3 horses and lots of fun new farm activities (who knew that spreading gravel on a driveway would be so endlessly fascinating for ten year old boys?). Last week we got to spend a few fun-filled days with their cousins, who have moved to Oklahoma (four hours away) from West Texas (14 hours away), much to our joy!


To finish, I'll leave with a picture of Little Miss a few weeks ago at a campaign event with the Senator and Mrs. Roberts.